Using Twitter Cards for Business and Marketing

DIY Sprocket Solutions

Here are the different types and what they do:

1. The Summary Card: The summary card has a place for a title, description, thumbnail image, and Twitter handle attributions for a page. 

2. The Photo Card: The photo card features an image, title, description and Twitter handle. In addition to the regular summary card, the photo card has a large image option which includes a larger image from the page instead just a thumbnail. The interesting thing is that it gives extra ways to click over to the article. Viewers can either click on the image, the title, or the “view on web” link to get to the article.
3. The Gallery Card: The gallery card is the same as the photo card, but instead of having one photo you can have up to four photos in your one tweet.
4. The App Card: The app card is a perfect Twitter card to use if your business has apps, uses apps, or sells apps. The cool thing about this one is when someone sees the tweet card about your app on their desktop computer, they are provided with a link to view it on the web. But, if they are looking at the tweet from their mobile device, they are prompted to download it. Either way, a handy tool to use.
5. The Player Card: This tool is great for businesses that actually use video or audio on their websites, blogs, social media platforms, etc. You can use the player card to tweet the piece of media that you’ve created (through Vine for example). The player card puts a live video or audio player within your tweet and viewers can actually play it right there on Twitter.
6. The Product Card: Since most businesses sell a PRODUCT –the product card is a great card to consider. This card has a title, description, thumbnail image and adds important info like price, location, etc.
7. The Lead Generation Card: This card is designed to do just that – get leads on Twitter. Users simply have to click one button and they’re prompted to share the email address already associated with their Twitter account. It takes one step out of the already simple two step process of typing in your email and hitting “subscribe”. The email address is already generated so all users have to do is click the “sign me up” button.
8. The Website Card: The website card drives traffic directly to the page of your website you choose. It has a thumbnail image (your logo), your website title, and a little call to action blurb.

You install the Twitter cards by actually adding the metadata to the head section of your website. You find the metadata on the developer page of each of the cards except the lead generation card and the website card (these can be found in the Twitter Ads platform under the “Creatives” menu. The install can be done manually if you have an individual page; otherwise. there are suggested plugins to use if you have a content management system. Then, you use the Twitter card validator to verify your cards and make sure they’re up and running.

Boom.  There you have it.  Twitter cards in a nutshell.  Not every card is a perfect fit for every type of business or marketing plan, but play around with them for a bit and figure out what works for you.  Have you had any success with Twitter cards for your business?  Share your experiences below!

Breanne BannonBreanne Bannon

Breanne is a Content Writer, Social Media Marketeer, and Sales Associate for Sprocket Websites.

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